As a practicing general internist for many years, Dr. Nobel experienced “the front lines” of health care and its delivery. Currently, through his faculty appointments at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Medical School, Dr. Nobel’s teaching, research, and community based projects address the design of healthcare delivery systems that improve quality, cost-effectiveness and access. His work has been the basis of significant improvements in preventative, acute, chronic, rehabilitative, and end of life medical care that focus on understanding what quality healthcare means from a patient perspective, and how best to deliver it. Dr. Nobel is also a recognized leader in the field of medical humanities, an interdisciplinary endeavor that draws on a diverse range of fields, including the creative arts, to inform medical education and practice. He is the founder and president of the Foundation for Art & Healing (www.artandhealing.org), an organization dedicated to exploring the important relationship between creative expression and health and well-being, and bringing those benefits to individuals and communities. The foundation is actively involved in creating a broader societal awareness that arts-based activities can improve health, while simultaneously developing and distributing innovative programs to the field, and promoting an active research agenda. Also a published poet, Dr. Nobel has received several awards for his poetry including the Bain-Swiggett Prize from Princeton University, and the American Academy of Poets Prize from the University of Pennsylvania.